of the House and of the City ordered to return the hearty thanks of the House to the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common Councel for their great Love and Civilities yesterday expressed to the Parliament and Army Referred to a Committee to consider what mark of Honour and Favour the Parliament should bestow upon the City for their real Affection to the Parliament Some Aldermen and Common Councel men in the name of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common Councel presented the Lord General with a large and weighty Bason and Ewer of beaten Gold as a testimony of the Affections of the Giny to his Excellence They also presented from the City to the Lieutenant General Cromwel Plate to the value of 300 l. and 200 Pieces in Gold 9 A long debate touching absent Members voted that those who gave their Votes for Addresses to be made to the late King should state their Cases in Writing by a day to a Committee for absent Members which if they neglect to do then Writs to be issued out for new Elections in the places of those who shall so neglect 11 Debate touching the Earl of Chesterfields Composition Letters from the Countess of Leicester and the Earl of Northumberland for allowance for the late Kings Children referred to the Committee of the Revenue to provide Monies for them Order for demolishing Montgomery Castle and allowance to the Lord Herbert for his Damage thereby out of his Fine Order for demolishing Winchester Castle and Reparation for the Damage thereby to Sir Willi-Waller The like for Belvoir Castle and for Reparation of the Damage thereby to the Earl of Rutland referred all to the Councel of State The Act passed for relieving Persons comprized in Articles Another for altering the Original Seales of Caermarthen Pembroke and Cardigan Another for altering the Seal of Nisi-prius of the Common Pleas. Order that the Members of the House and of the Councel of State the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal and Judges do attend the Funeral of Dr. Dorislaus Letters that the Parliament of Scotland took many exceptions to the Letter sent to them from the Parliament of England That they go on in raising Forces but the Quelling of the Levellers in England did not please them But they bewaile the suffering condition of their Preshyterian Brethren in England That in Scotland are many English Officers and Soldiers who expect imployment when their new King cometh and are out of Patience and Mony by his longstay that the Scots fear a Famine and Execute very many for Witches 12 Order for 6000. Men for the Summer Guard to be Proportioned to the ships and 3000 for the Winter Guard Referred to the Commitee of the Army to conferre with the Councel of State touching the number of Forces to be kept up and the Pay of them Referred to a Committee to prepare an Act upon Sir Henry Vane's report touching the Excise The new Judges were Sworn in the several Courts And it came to Whitlock's turn to make the Speech to those who were sworn Judges of the Common-Pleas Who were Mr. Sergeant Penleston and Mr. Sergeant Warberton Wherein amongst other matters he told them of their being the first Judges Publickly Sworn in this Common-wealth and spake to them concerning Judges in general Judges of this Common-wealth and Judges of this Court. On the second Head he told them That the Judges in this Common-wealth are of as great Antiquity as is the Law it self That the Druides were Judges or Interpreters of the Law Amongst the Pritains And as they studyed the Law 20. Years yet committed nothing to writing So out Judges spend as much longer time in the same study and our common Law is Lex non scripta at this Day He also intimated to them what he found in Ingulphus p. 870. and in Seldens Janus Anglorum of the Division made by King Alphred or Allured in Judices quos nunc Justiclarios vacamus et Vicioomites And in the sanie Author that when W. I. upon the suit of the Abbot of Crowland confirmed the Laws of St. Edward he proclaimed them to be kept et Justiciarijs suis commendabat And then he thus proceeds All these are Testimonies of the Antiquity of our Judges but I hold not this essential to be largely considered save as it falls in our way Neither shall I rob you of your time by an elaborate Discourse of the Honour and Respect due to your Place only you may pardon a few Observations thereupon and the rather for the particular Relation I have to that Calling What respect the Sexons had to their Judges appeares in the Etymology of their Word Grave which signifieth a Judge and an Earl Sir John Danys Rep. As in the old Law of the Ripuarians C. 55. Act 1st The Title being Si quis Graffionem interfecerit The Text is Si quis Judicem Fiscalem quem Comitem vocant interfecerit Seld. Tit. Hon. f. 121. 127. and Haillan f. 274. But to come nearer home we find in the Law of H. 1. This Description of a Judge Regis Judicos sunt Barones Comitatus qui liberas in eis tenras habent villani vero corsetti vel ferdingi vel qui sunt viles aut inopes Personae non sunt inter Indices numerandi Whence appears the reason of the Judges of the Exchequer being called Barons Seld. Tit. Hon. f. 347. and 390. Lambert f. 186. 1 H. 6. f. 7. Agreeable with this is the Testimony of Bracton who saith thus Comites vero vel Barones nonsunt amerciandi nisi per pares suos et hoc per Barones Scaccarij vel corain ipso Rege Vpon which and the Case of the Earl of Northumberland under H. 6. Selden observes that all Judges were held antiently as Barons And the Writ by which they were Summou'd to Parliament is in the same Style and hath in it the same words with the Writs of Summons of Barons Consitium vestrum impensuri Those of the Commons being ad faciendum et consentiendum hiis quae de communi Confilio ordinari contigeunt And in some Entries of Judgments upon Writs of Error in Parliament the words are ex assensn Institiariorum and the Title of Lord was given antiently to all the Judges as appears in divers of our Books and Records and is still given to the Judges of Assize They have their Officers and their Purveyante as the Barons had untill taken away by the Statute front both Rot. Parl. 10. E. 2. pt 2. M. 20. and 2. E. 3. pt 1. M. 33. and Rot. Claus 11. E. 1. and this was taken away by the Statute 4. E. 3. C. 3. Theye be divers Cases and Records of Punishments inflicted on those who gave any affronts to Judges and especially that noted Case of Roger Hengham M. 33. and 34. E. 1. rot 71. in the Receipt of the Exchequer So tender hath the State alwayes been of the Honour of their great publick Officers and as the State
2. and some others in Latine R. 2. H. 4. H. 5. and H. 6. used to write their Letters in French and some of our Pleadings are in French and in the Common-Pleas to our time But Sir our Law it Lex non scripta I mean our Common-Law and our Statutes Records and Books which are written in French are no Argument that therefore the Original of our Laws is from France but they were in being before any of the French Language was in our Laws Fortescue writes That the English kept their Accounts in French yet doubtless they had Accounts here and Revenues before the French Language was in use here My Lord Cooke saith That the Conqueror taught the English the Norman Terms of Hawking Hunting Gaming c. yet no doubt but that these Recreations were in use with us before his time And though D. William or any other of our Kings before or after his time did bring in the French Tongue amongst us yet that is no Argument that he or they did change or introduce our Laws which undoubtedly were here long before those times and some of them when the French Tongue was so much in use here were Translated Written and Pleaded and Recorded in the French Tongue yet remained the same Laws still And from that great Vse of the French Tongue here it was that the Reporters of our Law-Cases and Judgments which were in those times did write their Reports in French which was the pure French in that time though mixt with some words of Art Those Terms of Art were taken many of them from the Saxon Tongue as may be seen by them yet used And the Reporters of later times and our Students at this day use to take their Notes in French following the old Reports which they had studied and the old French which as in other Languages by time came to be varied I shall not deny but that some Monks in elder times and some Clerks and Officers might have a Cunning for their private Honour and Profit to keep up a Mystery to have as much as they could of our Laws to be in a kind of Mystery to the Vulgar to be the less understood by them But the Councellors at Law and Judges can have no advantage by it but perhaps it would be found that the Law being in English and generally more understood yet not sufficiently would occasion the more Suits And possibly there may be something of the like nature as to the Court-hand yet if the more common Hands were used in our Law-writings they would be the more subject to change as the English and other Languages are but not the Latine Surely the French Tongue used in our Reports and Law-Books deserves not to be so enviously decried as it is by Polydore Aliott Daniel Hottoman Cowel and other Censurers But Mr. Speaker if I have been tedious I humbly ask your pardon and have the more hopes to obtain it from so many worthy English Gentle-men when that which I have said was chiefly in vindication of their own Native Laws unto which I held my self the more obliged by the duty of my Profession and I account it an honour to me to be a Lawyer As to the Debate and Matter of the Act now before you I have delivered no Opinion against it nor do I think it reasonable that the Generality of the People of England should by an implicit Faith depend upon the knowledge of others in that which concerns them most of all It was the Romish Policy to keep them in ignorance of Matters pertaining to their Souls health let them not be in ignorance of Matters pertaining to their Bodies Estates and all their worldly Comfort It is not unreasonable that the Law should be in that Language which may best be understood by those whose Lives and Fortunes are subject to it and are to be governed by it Moses read all the Laws openly before the People in their Mother-Tongue God directed him to write it and to expound it to the People in their own Native Language that what concerned their Lives Liberties and Estates might be made known unto them in the most perspicuous way The Laws of the Eastern Nations were in their proper Tongue The Laws at Constantinople were in Greek at Rome in Latine in France Spain Germany Sueden Denmark and other Nations their Laws are Published in their Native Idiom For your own Countrey there is no man that can read the Saxon Character but may find the Laws of your Ancestors yet extant in the English Tongue D. William himself commanded the Laws to be proclaimed in English that none might pretend Ignorance of them It was the Judgment of the Parliament 36 E. 3. That Pleadings should be in English and in the Reigns of those Kings when our Statutes were enrolled in French and English yet then the Sheriffs in their several Counties were to proclaim them in English I shall conclude with a Complaint of what I have met with abroad from some Military Persons nothing but Scoffs and Invectives against our Law and Threats to take it away but the Law is above the reach of those Weapons which at one time or another will return upon those that use them Solid Arguments strong Reasons and Authorities are more fit for confutation of any Error and satisfaction of different Judgments When the Emperor took a Bishop in compleat Armor in a Battel he sent the Armor to the Pope with this Word Haeccine sunt vestes silii tui So may I say to those Gentlemen abroad as to their Railings Taunts and Threats against the Law Haeccine sunt Argumenta horum Antinomianorum They will be found of no force but recoyling Arms. Nor is it ingenious or prudent for Englishmen to deprave their Birthright the Laws of their own Countrey But to return to the Matter in Debate I can find neither strangeness nor foresee great inconvenience by passing of this Act and therefore if the House shall think fit to have the Question put for the passing of it I am ready to give my Affirmative The Question being put It was unanimously carried That the Act should pass for turning the Law-Books and the Process and Proceedings in the Courts of Justice into English 23 Letters from Scotland of the Proceedings of the Army in Mining Edinburg-Castle and that part of the King's House there was burnt 25 Letters That the Scots Officers had sent to break off any Treaty of Accommodation and that they were to have a general Meeting for reconciling all Parties That among some Tories taken in Scotland one was an Elder of the Kirk who confessed the killing of some of the English being instigated by the Ministers That C. Monk had taken in the strong Castle of Roswel That the Scots were agreed amongst themselves and raising Forces to recruit their Army to 30000. 26 Letters That C. Axtel Governour of Kilkenny marched forth with about 800 Horse and Foot to relieve the Parliaments Garrison
two wounded and got a French Prize A long Debate in a grand Committee about the equal proportioning of Taxes That Middleton was labouring to get Assistance of the States for the King of Scots and was offered it by them in case a Peace with England did not succeed 20 Advice of the French Pickeroons Design against the English Fleet coming from Newfoundland Of the Highlanders running away from their Officers that one of them Kenmorett marched with a Runlet of strong waters before him which they called Kenmoretts Drum Of Ships daily arriving at the Texel from the Northward That the States resolved upon a new Treaty of Peace with England and appointed Min Heer New-port and Joungstal to be added Commissioners for the Treaty of Peace with their other two Commissioners now in England That the Queen of Sweden shewed extraordinary kindness to the Spanish Ambassadour with her and was held to be a friend to the English 21 Letters that upon the March of the English Party into the Highlands they Retreated into their usual fastnesses amongst inaccessible Hills and Rocks That some Vessels came into Leith Road london with Fish and other Commodities and Provisions 22 Letters that the late Easterly wind for a fortnight together kept the Pickaroones from the English Coast Of the Speaker Frigot and Ten more of the Men of War gone out from the Downs to the Westward 24 Instructions passed for Administration of Justice in Scotland and Officers Letters of Kinninores Insurrection in the High-lands that Argyle advised the Commander of the English Forces not to Advance further against them That Holland resolved to renew the Treaty of Peace with England and in the mean time to prepare for War That the Swedes had given Letters of Marque against the Dutch 25 The House sate in a Grand Committee for the Bill of Union for Scotland with England A Petition from the Common Councel of London against the Lord Mayor Fowke referred to a Committee An Act past for the discovery and prosecution of Thieves and Highway-men The Lords Newport and Youngstal came to London to joyn with the other Two Deputies of the State to Treat with the Parliament for a Peace 26 Order for an Act against solliciting Members of Parliament for any Places and to disable such as shall do it That the Queen of Sweeds Agent came to the House to take his leave and that the Lord Ambassadour Whitlock was ready to go for Sweedland within two or three days Letters that Captain Sparling and another of the Parliaments Frigots had taken a Ship with Twelve hundred thousand pieces of Eight in her she pretended to be an Ostender Divers Seamen Armed and in a Tumultuous manner demanded at the Prize Office their shares of some Prizes taken and were so uncivil with the Commissioners that they were forced to send for Souldiers to appease them one of the Seamen was slain and divers were wounded on both sides Afterwards the Seamen came to Whitehall where they carried themselves more civilly and had good words given and were made sensible of their Errour and promised satisfaction and so they departed quietly 27 The Seamen more in number than before and better Armed came down again Tumultuously to White-Hall but was met with by the General his Life-Guard and soon dispersed Orders for the Reduced Officers in Ireland for their Arrears 28 Letters of Two Prizes brought into Leith Of Two Sea-Rovers put out of France pretending to have Commissions from Prince Rupert in the Name of the King of Scots That Argyle was raising Forces against his Countrymen the Highlanders but was not able to ballance their Power That upon the approach of the Parliaments Forces towards them the Highlanders retreated to their Fastnesses Upon the Tumults of the Seamen the Council published a Proclamation Declaring that Exemplary Justice shall be done upon the chief Authors or Ringleaders in the Mutiny and Sedition some whereof are in Custody and commanding that no Sea-men or others on pain of Death do meet in a Mutinous or Seditious manner and that the accounts shall be Stated and just payment made of all dues unto the Seamen The Parliament passed an additional Article to the Law of War and Ordinances of the Sea for punishing Mutinous Seamen 29 Upon a Report from the Council of State the House conferred several Gratuities to the Widdows and Children of those slain in the late Sea Fight The House approved the number and charge of Ships for this Winter Guard and Ordered Moneys for them The Lord-Ambassador Whitlock received his Commission and instructions for Sweedland from the hand of the Speaker in the House and is suddenly to go for Sweedland 31 Upon the Petition of the Water-men and antient Coach-men in London against the Exorbitancy and Multitudes of Hackney Coach-men Order for an Act for Redress thereof Votes for rewarding the Commissioners for Administration of Justice in Scotland Upon a Report from the Council Order for Dr. Cox to be Master of St. Katherines-Hospital The Spanish Ambassador had audience in the House The Four Dutch Deputies met with the Commissioners of the Council about the Treaty for Peace Two of the Tumultuous Seamen were Condemned at a Council of War one of them was Hanged the other Whipped under the Gallows A Petition of many who suffered by the delay of Justice in granting and allowing Writs of Error after Verdict and Judgment praying Remedy An Act passed for continuing the Powers of Commissioners for Compounding for advance of Moneys and Indempnity Letters of the Queen of Sweeds return to Stock-holm and the Spanish Ambassador Piementel with her November 1653. Nov. 1. The House chose a new Council of State whereof Sixteen of the old Council continued and Fifteen new ones were added Order to consider of the business of the Law upon every Friday Order for a Bill to take away Holy-days and days not Judicial The Commissioners of the Council and the Four Dutch Ambassadors met upon the Treaty Divers called Quakers apprehended in the North. That the business of Transplanting went on difficultly in Ireland 2. The House passed New Instructions for the New Council of State for Six Months The Lord Commissioner Whitlock Ambassador to the Queen of Sweeden set forwards with a Gallant Retinue from London to Gravesend to take Shiping there Letters that Captain Blagg took Prize a Ship of two hundred Tun and another Frigot took a French-Man of twenty Guns That young Trump being seen with Eight Ships off the Lizard The Frigots at Portsmouth being Seven weighed Anchor and put to Sea after him Of two other Prizes brought into Plymouth and the Channel cleared of the Pyrats 3. Of a Fight at Sea on the Spanish Coast by four Dutch Men of War against one Merchant Man who run her self on shore and kept off the Dutch and got off from the shore again Letters that the Commissioners in Ireland had disarmed all the Irish and forbid any of
aiding the King in his Wars and of an Act for making void all honours conferred on persons without the consent of both Houses And of an Act for the due observation of the Lords day Order for two great Cannons to be sent down to the Forces before Pontefract and Scarborough The House required an account concerning the taking off of the Sequestration of Sir John Winters Estate Order for addition of seven days more time for the Treaty at the Isle of Wight Letters from St. Albans that the General Officers of the Army upon their several meetings at the head quarters had agreed upon a Large Remonstrance to be presented to the Parliament The new Serjeants appeared at the Chancery Bar and Whitelock made the speech to them to this Effect M r Serjeant S t John and the rest of you Gentlemen who have received Writs to be Serjeants at Law IT hath pleased the Parliament in commanding these Writs to issue forth to manifest their constant resolutions to continue and maintain the old setled form of Government and Laws of the Kingdom and to provide for the supply of the high Courts of Justice with the usual number of Judges and to manifest their respects to our profession And likewise to bestow a particular mark of favour upon you as eminent Members of it the good affections to the publick and the abilities of most of you they know by experience among themselves and of the rest by good information I acknowledge that the burthen of this business lies heavy upon me in regard of my own weakness And the worthiness of the Persons to whom my words are directed but as I am of the least ability to give so you have the least need to receive Instructions I should be unwilling to see the solemnity of this general Call diminished and am the rather perswaded to supply my present duty for several respects 1. For the honour of that Authority which commands your attendance and my service upon this occasion 2. For the honour of this Court which challengeth a great share in this work your Writs issuing from hence your appearance here Recorded and your Oath is here to be taken 3. The honour and particular respects which I have of you that are called to this degree 4. And lastly out of my own affections to the degree being my self the Son of a Sergeant and having the honour to be one of your number in this Call and I do acknowledge that both in my descent and fortune I am a great debtor to the Law For these reasons I presume especially being with those from whom I have by long acquaintance found much friendship that I shall now receive a fair construction of what I speak upon this very great subject My observations shall be upon your Call by Writ and upon the Writ it self Your being called by Writ is a great argument of the antiquity of Sergeants The Register hath many Writs as my Lord Coke holds in his Preface to the 10. Rep. that were in use before the Conquest and in the most antient Manuscript Registers is your Writ of the same form with those by which you are called and if there had beeen any alteration within time of memory it would probably have been extant We find Sergeants at Law often mentioned in our Year-Books and in the Records in the Tower as high as the beginning of E. 1. and by Bracton who wrote in H. 3. time And it may probably be conjectured that William de Bussey was a Sergeant by his habit of the Coif and his Office Of whom Matthew Paris relates 42 H. 3. that he was Seneschallus Principalis Consiliarius Gulielmi de Valentia and being accused for great crimes upon his Tryal when he could not acquit himself Voluit ligamenta suae Coifae solvere ut palam monstraret tonsuram se habere clericalem and so to have avoided judgment but it would not serve his turn Thus far it is granted by a little Manuscript treatise which endeavours to detract from the honour of this degree and therefore requires an answer It asserts that by Magna Charta Communia placita non sequantur curiam nostram the Court of Common-Pleas was crected and that some of our profession by Writ then framed were commanded to attend that lower Court the Lawyers being generally unwilling to leave the Kings House where the other Courts of Justice then sate and to attend this new Court elsewhere It is reasonable well that they are allowed the antiquity of 9 H. 3. and by this as antient as the Common-Pleas Court but the errour that this Court was erected 9 H. 3. is sufficiently refuted The same great Charter is in Matthew Paris in King John's time with the words of Communia placita c. in it but I presume his meaning is that before the Statute of Magna Charta there was no Court of Common-Pleas though his words be before 9 H. 3. It is manifest by undeniable Authorities out of antient Manuscripts and Rolls and the black Book of Peterburgh that Cases were adjudged in R. 1. and H. 2. time coram Justitiariis in Banco residentibus and the names of those that were then Judges of this Court are set down many years before Magna Charta was granted which by Hoveden Paris and others are said to be the Laws of Edward the Confessor And if itbe admitted that Sergeants are as ancient as these Laws they allow them the Antiquity of the Confessor and if as ancient as this Court they are certainly as ancient as any thing in our Law But the Author of this Treatise affirmeth that before the Erection of the Court of Common-Pleas it cannot be shewed that there were any special Sergeant Pleaders I am of his opinion and likewise that no man can shew when that Court was first erected which is also the opinion of my Lord Coke 5. Rep. 9 Ed. 4. Sir Roger Owen Lambert and others Yet if the Author mean that before Magna Charta 9 H. 3. there were no such Sergeants he may be satisfied the contrary out of Hoveden and Paris who lived in R. 1. and H. 3. time and are Authors of good Credit They recite the Charge of the Justices in Eyer given in R. 1. and King John's time One of their Articles is to Enquire of the Sergeants at Law and Attorneys Fees In the Book of Entries in a Bill of Debt against a Sergeant at Law in the Common-Pleas he shows and prescribes that Sergeants could not be sued there by Bill but by Writ out of the Chancery and this being by Prescription shows that Sergeants were before the time of Rich. 1. And the Mirror of Justices which I presume they will not deny to be yet more ancient which my Lord Coke holds to be written before the Conquest saith a Countor est un Sergeant Sachant in la Ley de Realm to pronounce and defend Actions in Judgment From the Antiquity of the degree I come
to my observations upon the words of your Writ which I shall take in order as they are 1. Quia de Advisamento Concilii nostri c. These words are in the Writs of Creation of Peers and in the Summons of them both Spiritual and Temporal and of the Judges and Kings Council to the Parliament and in your Writs but in no other except upon some high and weighty occasions touching the publick safety and the like And for your greater Honour this Council by advice of which you are called to this degree is the great Council of the Kingdom The Next words in your Writ are Ordinavimus vos c. in the plural Number in the second person which is an Enalage of Number chiefly to express Excellency in the Person to whom it is referred Selden in his Titles of Honour f. 121. showeth the use of it in the Jewish Nation and in France Spain Germany and other Countries and always is in dignity of the party to whom applyed and the stile of the Chancery is so only to the Peers the Judges the Kings Council and to Sergeants Therefore 29 E. 3. f. 44. In a Quare Impedit the Writ was Precipite and excepted against as false Latin but Thorp said it was not false Latin but the plural Number only to express Reverence to the person the other answered that no such reverence is done to a Sheriff and for this the Writ was abated The next words in your Writ are ad Statum c. which sheweth dignity and honour given to them The Author of the Manuscript formerly cited by me allows the Sergeants but little state where he saith they kept their Pillars at Pauls where their Clients might find them as if they did little better than Emendicare panem This was somewhat far from Westminster-Hall and as far from truth being grounded upon a mistake of one of their Ceremonies of State where they went to Pauls to Offer A Manuscript of the Call of Fitz James and other Sergeants 11 H. 8. saith that their Steward brought every one of them to a several Pillar in Pauls and there left them a time for their private Devotions no Convenient time for Clients In the Register a Writ of Ex gravi Querela mentions a devise to a Priest to say Mass at a Pillar in Pauls and I believe most of us both in this and other great Churches have seen old people kneeling at the Pillars in their private prayers Our old English Poet Chaucer whom I think not unproper to cite being one of the greatest Clerks and Wits of his time had a better Opinion of the state of a Sergeant as he expresseth in his Prologue of the Sergeant A Sergeant at Law wary and wise That oft had bin at the pervise There was also full of rich Excellence Discreet he was and of great Reverence And in his description of the Franklyn he saith of him At Sessions there was he Lord and Sire Full oft had he bin Knight of the Shire A Sheriff had he bin and a Countor Was no where such a worthy Vavasor A Countor was a Sergeant and a Vavasour was the next in degree to a Baron We find in many of our Year-Books especially in E. 3's time that they were joyned with Knights in Assizes Trials of Challenges c. 38 H. 6. f. 31. Prisot saith to the Sergeants they would have no worship by such an Act c. and that word was given to the Lords in those days By the Statute 12 R. 2. c. 10. the same priviledge which is given to the Judges for absence from the Sessions is given also to the Sergeants 34 Hen. 6. Brook Nosme 5. saith that serviens adlegem est nosme de dignity comme Chivalier and it is character indelebilis no accession of honour or Office or remotion from them takes away this dignity but he remains a Sergeant still Their Robes and Officers their bounty in-giving Rings their Feasts which Fortescue saith were coronationis instar and continued antiently seven days and as Holingshed notes Kings and Queens were often present at them and all their Ceremonies and Solemnities in their Creation do sufficiently express the state due unto them The next words in your Writ are Et gradum c. This is a degree of such eminency that the professours of Law in no Nation are honoured with the like with such Solemnities and state as I have before mentioned and by Mandate under the publick Seal of the Common-wealth I find indeed in the preface to the Digest several appellations given to the Students of that Law that they called them Dupondios or Justinianeos and when of further standing Papinianistas When they had proceeded further they called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the title and degree of Doctour of the Laws I acknowledge to merit very much of respect and honour as to the degree and persons honoured with it But such state and degree as this of Sergeants at Law is not among the Municipal Lawyers of any other Nation though all kingdoms have their Municipal Laws and Lawyers as well as we Degrees are rewards of study and learning Nec enim Virtutem amplectimur ipsam Praemia si tollas They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spur to-virtue and witnesses of learning And since Gentle-men you have already obtained that depth in your profession as renders you capable of this degree that resolution of all true lovers of learning is worthy of you 1. To say Senesco discens proceed in your Studies still Your predecessors for their learning have been often advised with by the Judges as appears in our Books and by the Parliament as may be seen in the Rolls thereof 2. By this degree you become Chief Advocates of the Common Law an attribute given by Fortescue who was a Sergeant and Chief Justice and Lord Chancellour It imports no less than all antiquity hath appropriated unto Sergeants at Law the practice of that great and Universal Court where all that concerns Meum tuum the inheritances and property of all the people of England are heard and determined This degree Ordaining you to be Chief Advocates the duty of whom pertains to you to be performed and may not be declined by you I hold it not impertinent to mention something to you of the duties of an Advocate which are some of them to the Courts and some to Clients To the Courts of Justice he owes reverence they being the high Tribunals of Law of which Doctor and Student and the Statute Marlebridge saith omnes tam Majores quam Minores justitiam recipiant and therefore great respect and reverence is due to them from all persons and more from Advocates than from any others 2. An Advocate owes to the Court a just and true information the zeal of his Clients cause as it must not transport him to irreverence so it must not mislead him to untruths in his information of the